Retro Pick-Ups – 18/02/2014

That’s right, I’m starting to give these articles titles dates, I just thought it might make sense to do so.

So anyway, after college, I was at CEX and G-Force as usual, but I was there for a reason, you see, I’ve made myself a wishlist (well, still am), of games I want in the future…

(…and I think it’s safe to say, I got a little carried away…)

…so I had a few games too look for, usually, these stores I go to have the games in mint condition and are cheaper than it is on Amazon, plus you know what you’re getting (You wouldn’t believe how many times I got a US version of a game from Amazon!). Besides, there’s nothing like the experience of buying a game in a store, am I right?
Anyway, on Monday, I was browsing around the shops with a friend from college, who, like me, likes to play and collect old games, we were talking about the Sega Mega Drive, he mentioned that he was hoping to get every Mega Drive ever released, and I asked if that included the add-ons, the Mega CD and the 32x, and he said he wanted to get them, I mentioned to him that to get a Mega CD by itself is £200, but I got a model 1 mega drive with the Mega CD, 2 controllers, and 4 games, for £100, he seemed very jealous! I hope a similar bargain eventually comes my way for the 32x….

So we went to G-Force first, and I found some what I thought were good deals, I got Racing Simulation 2: Monaco Grand Prix and Virtua Striker 2 Version 2000.1, both for the Sega Dreamcast, for £1 and £3 respectivley, so I got those.

See how it says “Racing Simulation: Monaco Grand Prix”? Yeah, keep that in mind…

When I opened up the case to try out the game, it turns out that there was in fact another game inside, called “Sega Extreme Sports”, a game I’ve never heard of before, it turns out to be a port of a Game Boy Color game, that’s not a good sign….

I’ve never heard of it before, it’s apparently a port of a Game Boy Color game, that’s not a good sign….

I also found something else, both the disc and the manual of the game says “Monaco Grand Prix: Racing Simulation 2″…

Make up your minds, guys, what’s the game called!?

Also, here’s Virtua Striker 2:

My first impressions? Well Racing Simulation is sort of meh, it’s got nice visuals, but the gameplay is nothing special to me. Sega Sports isn’t great either, but that was free, so no complaints from me.

As for Virtua Striker, the first time I tried it, I hated it! First off, no analog support, in a football game… why!? The AI are annoying as well, and they seem to be rubberband, no matter how much in the open or close to the goals I get, a player for the opposing team will ALWAYS catch up, and hack you before you can score, it gets annoying after a while… It’s such a shame, I was really looking forward to playing it, I mean it’s a football arcade game! The graphics looks really nice, especially in VGA mode, and the game is over the top in the sound department, when you score, a guy screams as if he got stabbed or something… Although I hear it gets better once you get the hang of it.

So I played the game a bit more, and got used to it, and I really started to enjoy it! I think it’s awesome, it’s my favourite football game now. I mean, FIFA and PES are alright, but I wanted an arcade football game, nothing too complex, I don’t want to worry about formations, or player stats, or doing skills, because to be honest, I don’t care. I’m that big of a football fan, I don’t religiously follow it, and know everything that goes on, etc., I only watch the occasional international match that has Scotland in it, maybe a champions league match if Celtic are in it, that’s it.
Virtua Striker only focuses on giving a fast and fun arcade game, so it’s perfect for me! Though because of it’s simplicity, I doubt anyone I know would want to play it with me, which is a shame…

Still, I think they should make a new Virtua Striker, I mean, the Wii U isn’t getting any football games, it’s an untapped market, now’s your chance, Sega!

Anyway, I went to CEX afterwards, and got some PS2 games and a couple of Wii Games.

I got Quantum of Solace, Stitch: Experiment 626, Eye-Toy Play 3 (No Eye-Toy Play 2, though…) and Yakuza for the PS2, and I got Mad Dog Mcree: Gunslinger Pack and Goldeneye 007 Reloaded on the Wii. (I know, it’s just “Goldeneye 007”, but I’m adding the “Reloaded” to avoid confusion from the Original)

GoldenWhy!

My Wii U is still being repaired, so I haven’t got the chance to play the Wii games, but I played the PS2 games, to see if they worked, Quantum of Solace is brilliant, it’s in 3rd person as opposed to 1st person in all of the other Console/PC versions, the combat aspects are worse, but the stealth sections are better!

Stitch Experiment 626 has this issue when playing through Component, the screen is to the far top-left corner, and the game has no options to move the screen, the game is barely playable in the state it’s in. This is why such options were invented!

Yakuza looks like it’s going to be a great game, but seeing as it’s apparently a spiritual successor to Shenmue, I think I’ll finish off Shenmue 2 before starting Yakuza…

I’m leaving Eye-Toy Play 3 till when my friend comes over…

So on Tuesday, before I went to meet up with my friend, I stopped over at CEX, one I just discovered that day, actually. I found Eye-Toy Play 2 there. I also found Gadget Racers on the PS2, a game in the Choro Q seires I’m collecting, for £1, so I nabbed it.

Funny story about how I got these, actually, I had no physical money with me at the time, just my card, so I went over to pay by card, however, the card machines didn’t work, apparently that was caused by the fact that they couldn’t connect to the internet, makes sense, I guess, and they just said that I should come back later. So I did that, I went to the nearest bank machine (that done free cash withdrawals, of course), and Tesco was only a couple of blocks down, with an ATM hanging outside, so I went there and took out £10 (which was the minimum), and then I went back the CEX to pay for the games. They must’ve thought I was a total weirdo, going as far as I had to pay £1.15 for an Eye-toy game and a game about toy cars, but I doubt I’ll ever be visiting that CEX again, so I don’t care!

So yeah, I’m about to play some Eye-Toy with my friend, so I’ll let youse know how the game hold up today afterwards later on, until then, BYE!